The blem-ness of these discs is variable. It is difficult to find any flaw in the Katana. The Wraith has some deformity under the nose, but only on one side of the disc. The nose on the opposite side looks fine. It is almost as if the ring piece of the mold wasn't seated properly, and got slightly tweaked or bent out of shape.

Regarding the process, I've had some thoughts, and I think this process can be enlightening with regard to the mechanics of injection molding of discs. I imagine that they usually would press out any air bubbles that result from melting the pellets, before injection into the mold. In the Blizzard case, they manage to get air into it, but it is distributed in small bubbles, and they seem to have some sort of control on bubble sizes (the blems were experiments). Getting a frothy mixture of air and molten plastic with uniform small bubbles is probably very difficult to do just by mixing air and plastic pellets together. But, there is another way...I'm going to make a wild guess that maybe the bubbles are created by some sort of additive in the plastic itself that generates gases during injection (perhaps triggered by the decompression that occurs once the plastic enters the mold). For example, they could produce the plastic in a high pressure CO2 chamber, and the gases would dissolve into the plastic itself. This would produce a more uniform bubble distribution since the bubbles are exsolving internally from the plastic itself. The degree to which the bubbles are stretched (elliptical vs. spherical) is an indication of how far the bubbles were transported (stretched) in the injected plastic from the point where they initially exsolved (they should always begin spherical) and/or past the critical point where the plastic rheology is soft enough to relax deformed shapes back to spherical (owing to surface tension).

The two I got from Steven were "non-blems" from the taiwan open and they look pretty good. Other than the obscene dome the rest seems to be properly formed. Also even with the high dome my wraith still doesnt have the thumbtrac-like area seen in the picture you posted. There are a lot more markings than you usually see on a new champ disc from the manufacturing process around the top and bottom of the rim, like they may be more difficult to pull out of the mold or something, but they are barely noticeable and wont be visable with a little more wear on them.

I think the pressure inside the plastic due to expansion of bubbles in the flight plate can explain the bubble-dome we see in a lot of these discs. The increased pressure makes the plastic want to expand radially outward, but it is confined around the outside by the rigid rim. Thus it bows upward.

So the final product will be nothing like what we are getting now? nice lol. I really didnt get much out of his response other than the production run will not have bubbles in the flight plate. Cool that he answered you though.

swel304 wrote:So...the production run will not have bubbles in the flight plate...

Yeah, flight plate bubbles=blems. Now we know why they called these first ones blems, which had been puzzling to me.

If all the bubbles are in the rim, and none in the flight plate, then the relative moment of inertia of the disc (i.e., the value normalized/divided by mass and radius squared) will be less than a solid disc, and they will probably turn more than the blems.

swel304 wrote:So...the production run will not have bubbles in the flight plate...

Yeah, flight plate bubbles=blems. Now we know why they called these first ones blems, which had been puzzling to me.

If all the bubbles are in the rim, and none in the flight plate, then the relative moment of inertia of the disc (i.e., the value normalized/divided by mass and radius squared) will be less than a solid disc, and they will probably turn more than the blems.

lol at the speculation.

flight plate bubbles are going to be part of the production run. they were not the reason for considering them factory seconds.

the newer type mentioned on PDGA are just a modified version that will eventually make its way into production.

its a game of mistakes. whoever can make the least amount of mistakes wins.

swel304 wrote:So...the production run will not have bubbles in the flight plate...

Yeah, flight plate bubbles=blems. Now we know why they called these first ones blems, which had been puzzling to me.

If all the bubbles are in the rim, and none in the flight plate, then the relative moment of inertia of the disc (i.e., the value normalized/divided by mass and radius squared) will be less than a solid disc, and they will probably turn more than the blems.

lol at the speculation.

flight plate bubbles are going to be part of the production run. they were not the reason for considering them factory seconds.

the newer type mentioned on PDGA are just a modified version that will eventually make its way into production.

Speculation? Read Dave Dunipace's response...

Dave Dunipace wrote:...The molding has evolved into, what I think is an acceptable and marketable product that does not have bubbles in the flight plate, just the rim. We started with bubbles everywhere, but that often produced unacceptable visual results...

He also says that the large domes are not due to bubbles in the plate but factors involved in controlling the bubbles, which sounds like a round about way of saying "it's the bubbles". At any rate I can see why they would have to do this to be able to market these effectively and maybe having more control of the flight plate shape will compensate for the change in weight distribution.

swel304 wrote:So...the production run will not have bubbles in the flight plate...

Yeah, flight plate bubbles=blems. Now we know why they called these first ones blems, which had been puzzling to me.

If all the bubbles are in the rim, and none in the flight plate, then the relative moment of inertia of the disc (i.e., the value normalized/divided by mass and radius squared) will be less than a solid disc, and they will probably turn more than the blems.

lol at the speculation.

flight plate bubbles are going to be part of the production run. they were not the reason for considering them factory seconds.

the newer type mentioned on PDGA are just a modified version that will eventually make its way into production.

Speculation? Read Dave Dunipace's response...

Dave Dunipace wrote:...The molding has evolved into, what I think is an acceptable and marketable product that does not have bubbles in the flight plate, just the rim. We started with bubbles everywhere, but that often produced unacceptable visual results...

i can see how you interpreted the DD post, but i still stand by my post.

i'll bump the thread again when the 1st run comes out with bubbles in the flight plate

/of input....back to lurking

its a game of mistakes. whoever can make the least amount of mistakes wins.

finally got out to toss these things this morning and they are more or less what I expected (or as much as you can tell with 15-25mph wind). The wraith didn't seem nearly as flippy as I expected and actually wasn't totally useless into a headwind. I have almost zero experience with a katana but in a tailwind I was getting it out to my normal max D without much problem. Into the headwind I tossed three of the longest rollers I have ever thrown with the katana, but I wasn't really trying to throw rollers.. lol. Overall I was tossing them both just a little further than my normal drivers but I need some field time with less wind to say for sure. I am pretty sure the wraith is going into the bag.

I bought a 126g Katana off ebay because I, a) wanted to try out blizzards, and b) wanted a floater for 2 disc devouring water holes on my local course. I just got it today and after a couple rounds I like it. This ones not as domey as some of the blizzards I've seen so far. My max D is around 350ish and this disc has no problem hitting that. Once I got the feel of the weight, or lack there of, I was lovin the way this thing threw. It has almost the same flight pattern as my 172g Katana with just a little more turn but I don't have to throw it as hard to get the D. A 5-10mph crosswind did push it around quite a bit though. I'm gonna go chuck it some more tomorrow but so far I'm really considering the others in the upper 140's lower 150's weights.